Ladies and Gents, I am about to head out to the BFF’s house. I have neglected the poor man recently so he is going to cook me dinner tonight. And since he is such a good cook and good company, I cannot resist. I hope he has the TiVO set for the first part of the John Adams miniseries tonight on HBO so we can watch it together. Here is a trailer:
The movie is based on the book by David McCullough. (Highly recommended. I bought it for the BFF for Christmas several years ago but *I* read it first.) John Adams was a motivating force in the separation from England and writing the Declaration of Independence. Oddly enough, he wasn’t heavily involved in writing the constitution, at least, not as involved as James Madison and others. Adams was off in France during much of that period of time, serving as our Secretary of State of sorts. So, much of what the Constitution is based on is the Federalist Papers. It might be a good time to revisit those papers because if I recall my poli sci 101 correctly, the Constitution was written in part to protect the rights of property owners from the effects of mob rule. Yes, our founding fathers were liberals, up to a point.
In any case, we will be discussing some of the outcomes of Federalism and its effects in modern politics in the days ahead. Expect “Federalist” to make a repeat appearance in our posts. But does that word mean what people like Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts think it means? And what does Barack Obama have to do with Federalists?
Stay tuned….
Filed under: Politics, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: Barack Obama, David McCullough, Federalist papers, federalist society, HBO, James Madison, John Adams, John Roberts | 15 Comments »